The Brainiac Superman knows has gathered versions of himself from across time and space. He wants something to fill a gap he’s identified. Is it the creature he’s been building with the energies of super-beings from all over Metropolis and the muscle of the last survivors of Lobo’s homeworld?
Or is it something other than the Brainiac Queen? Lex Luthor, last seen being grabbed by a depowered Supergirl and falling to almost certain death in the Bottle City of Colu, may know.
Of course, the ever-resourceful Kara saved them (likely before the always sharp Lex saved them himself). As they’re being taken back to Brainiac’s Hive ship by the android scientist’s drones, help arrives from an unexpected quarter.
It’s Vril Dox from L.E.G.I.O.N. and his mother, who has completely slipped my mind (anyone?).
Also this issue – the cover is a hint – the alliance between Superman and Lobo hits a rough spot.
Another week, another episode of House of Brainiac, another big smile on my face. Writer Josh Williamson’s story just gets better and better, with more characters popping up as the mysteries deepen. As well as what Brainiac is really looking for, there’s the question as to what he wants with Lena Luthor, how Brainiac will use Metallo’s unique skin, and where Superman gets his strength from if not Earth’s yellow sun?
It has to be family, surely.
Along with the characterisation, there’s a lot of bigger than usual Superman action, as he unleashes the full force of his power against dolphin-loving douche Lobo.
And doesn’t it look great, courtesy of lead House of Brainiac artist Rafa Sandoval. The dynamism is off the page, and on the page. Miguel Mendonça, meanwhile, handles the scenes in and around Brainiac’s ship with equal aplomb, his compositions and execution amping up the drama of Williamson’s sharp script. I hope the superb Mendonça gets a regular Superman Family assignment – Supergirl please, he draws a fine Kara.
His Luthor is also superb, especially as contoured by Sánchez, who makes the entire issue glow with cosmic colours. And I can’t emphasise enough how useful Ariana Maher’s choice of font size, weight and direction is.
The cover illo by Sandoval and Sanchez is a well-rendered take on a classic visual trope, notable because while I’ve seen the Man of Steel’s uniform ripped plenty, this is the first time I’ve seen Superman with a hole in his tights. Darn.
This three-month serial is proving a great argument for the return of the weekly triangle concept – the momentum is making a clever story even more exciting. Come on DC, give us a weekly Superman series.
Just me?
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 
This was mostly a good issue, and I agree with your point that this shows a return to the Triangle Era’s storytelling model (or at least something close to it) could be feasible, and that there’s might be a good case for having at least one Superfamily related book released in any given week. Personally, I think the best way to do this is to make a few additional books that tell an interwoven story, but from the perspective of a different character or set of characters. An example of this is that Action Comics could be an ensemble book, Superman would focus on Clark. Kara could be the focus of a Supergirl book or possibly co-star with Power Girl, and some combination of Jon, Conner, Kenan, and the Twins could round out one or two other books (personally I would have the Twins and Jon either on their own or together while Conner and Kenan could be a solid duo, but other combos could work reasonably well).
The one huge issue with any of this though is that for it to succeed there would need to be a really solid writing and editorial team on it, with a particularly strong supervising group writer and group editor in the lead. Part of why this event is working is because Williamson is in complete control of the writing for the core event due to his helming Action Comics and Superman simultaneously. It’s fairly notable that the parts of the event which he isn’t writing such as Leah Williams’ Power Girl tie in story (at least so far) or the chunks of the 2.5 issue that he didn’t write generally had a pretty sharp drop off in content. Unless Williamson or some other writer who “gets” the Superfamily on an individual as well as a group level and who also has strong storytelling abilities – e.g. PKJ or Mark Waid – was given a strong leading writer role (which very likely also means accepting direct responsibility for writing at least two titles that would be at the core of pan Superfamily arcs), and DC’s also willing to put similar writers on the other titles it’s probably a bit premature for a permanent return to Triangle Era stories with additional Superfamily books.
Unfortunately, the latter condition is really problematic for DC at the moment. For every success they seem to have with Superman related title writers such as Williamson, Johnson, or Waid, they seem to have a failure with writers such as Williams, Aaron, or Houser. It seems at times that when they pick a writer for these titles, they’re just spinning a roulette wheel and then picking whatever writer the ball happens to land on. That arguably makes the risk of additional books ending up with the same kind of weak narrative structure and mishandling of the characters currently seen in Power Girl too likely. The failure to remove Williams from that series or cancel it in tandem with the aforementioned issues is also solid evidence that while Paul Kaminski might be ok when he’s personally acting as lead editor for a series, he’s fairly weak as a group editor. Without strong group editing an attempt to make ongoing Triangle type narratives or to add new series in order to get to the weekly mark is probably doomed. The final nail in the coffin for all of this is that the current “All Stars” concept for Action Comics is just incompatible with doing this. Failing to make a long term commitment to having a single writer helm Action Comics makes the kind of planning needed for Triangle stories functionally impossible. It also seems like further evidence that the editorial side of the Superman group titles just isn’t up to this, both because that lack of commitment as well as the weakness of the concept signal bad decision making and because backing the “All Stars” concept in the first place makes it seem like the editorial side isn’t interested in doing these kinds of stories on an ongoing basis.
I still hope that we get there one day though. Hopefully later this year DC will finally announce a permanent writer for Action Comics and either drop Williams from Power Girl or cancel the series. Until then, kudos to Williamson and co. for making this event a nice little dream of what could be in the Superfamily corner of the DCU.
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Thanks for the excellent thoughts about how go make a Triangle Era comeback work. The apportioning of characters and books makes sense, and deffo we’d need a strong ‘showrunner’. I’d happily have that be a strong, creative editor rather than a single writer – those old Superman summits at which all the regular creative team members could make suggestions – didn’t colourist Gregory Wright come up with the idea of a new take on the classic Superman Red/Superman Blue imaginary story, following on from Electric Superman? – sound to have been excellent affairs, setting the course for each year.
Amen to your hopes for Power Girl, heck, I’d rather she were in limbo than in terribly stories.
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Jumping off your Power Girl thoughts… it’s not that she’s in a bad comic. If this were any other character it would be a perfectly serviceable comic starring a generic super lady.
It’s just not a great Power Girl comic, given that Karen is acting nothing like she ever has in the past.
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I don’t think we’ve seen Vril Dox’s mom before. I know that during the reboot era of the Legion, they played around with introducing Brainiac 5’s mom (and may have done so… but it would have been late in the run, right before the Abnett and Lanning stories kicked in, I think.
I could be misremembering things, but i don’t have enough interest to actually google or wiki it at the moment. lol
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I know that feeling, Murray!
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Weakest entry of the storyline, with all of the needless tropes used to pad out a story. Superman in chains, the Brainiac Queen lives(!), Brainiac betrays the Czarnians, we know the outcomes to these things, so why waste an issue on it? Great review as always.
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Thanks, sorry this wasn’t your cup of tea.
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